Domestic
Goddess Kate Chopin was born Katherine O'Flaherty, in St.
Louis, Missouri. Her parents were from Irish and Creole backgrounds.
When Chopin was widowed at 32, she began writing to support herself
and her six children. She was widely accepted as a writer of local
color fiction, and was generally successful until the publication
of her scandalous novel The Awakening, in 1899. Perched
between the social conservatism of the nineteenth century and
dealing with tabooed themes too soon for the growingly open twentieth,
the novel's sexually aware and shocking protagonist, Edna Pontillier,
pushed Chopin into literary oblivion. Chopin, and her memorable
characters and stories, finally emerged from society's morally
imposed ostracization during the resurgence of women's rights
in the early 1970's.

Even today, much of the criticism of Chopin's most famous work
centers on Edna Pontillier's morals-- is she a fallen woman, a
bad mother, a selfish human being? Why does the character still,
in an era where sexual openness is not totally condemned, point
us toward a discussion of what makes a woman "bad?"
What does the novel say about constrictions and constructions
of the feminine role, today and during the time it was written?
What does the novel say about human consciousness, and conscience?

Chopin's most famous novel's structure and evocative natural
imagery deserve more attention. Her short stories, from "A
Night in Acadie" to "An Egyptian Cigarette" to
"A Vocation and a Voice," are also quite interesting.
Chopin was and is an accomplished writer who deserves to be discussed
not only from the standpoint of one woman's "awakening"
but from the position of all women and indeed, all humans, in
society, today and yesterday.

These different covers of The Awakening show how some
readers today interpret important images from the work-- the
sea, a solitary woman, women together-- these are all important
elements in the novel. I'm particularly interested in the way
so many of them also use the color red-- is this intentional,
or an accident of our association of "red" with "scarlet
women"? What about the one with a woman reading? That's
certainly different from the others . . . food for thought.

Marilynne Robinson, in the introduction
to the Bantam edition of The Awakening, published in 1989,
says:

In discovering herself Edna is discovering her fate. In exploring
Edna's regression, as she puts aside adult life, retracing her
experience to its beginnings, for her its essence, Chopin describes
as well a journey inward, evoking all the prodigal richness of
longing, fantasy, and memory. The novel is not a simulated case
study, but an exploration of the solitary soul still enchanted
by the primal, charged, and intimate encounter of naked sensation
with the astonishing world. (xx)

Only when we discuss Chopin as more than a "one-trick
pony" can we discover more about ourselves.

Recently, Emily Toth, one of the foremost Chopin scholars,
published a critical biography of Chopin, which I recommend highly
for anyone who is interested in Chopin's work called Unveiling
Kate Chopin (cover, left). To quote Toth,